


Waking Up Elsewhere

by cracktheglasses (cormallen)



Series: Short Prompt Fic! [3]
Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-15
Updated: 2016-03-15
Packaged: 2018-05-26 19:25:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6252445
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cormallen/pseuds/cracktheglasses
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Another prompt ficlet, for the prompt "Waking Up Elsewhere, Kylo/Hux or Rey/Hux". It turned out more gen than anything, but maybe a teeny tiny bit Kylux if you squint.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Waking Up Elsewhere

**Author's Note:**

  * For [machinewithoutfeelings](https://archiveofourown.org/users/machinewithoutfeelings/gifts).



“Where’s Kylo?” is the first thing the girl says when she wakes, and Hux would bristle at that if he still had the energy. If it wasn’t so bloody expected. If it wasn’t the first thing he’d asked the smoking dash of the escape pod when he’d first come to. It had still been beeping in short-burst pulses, the too-calm, pre-recorded voice droning on about unstable life support systems and imminent collision, and while it had been too late to do anything about those, at least Ren would have made the thing shut up. 

As it is, it’d stopped on its own, finally out of juice, but he’d pelted it with a rock regardless, watched the cracks spidering through the info panel. It had felt good, despite the sharp, jagged pain zig-zagging through his upper arm.

“Where are we? What did you do to me?” she asks next, and that one would get his hackles up, but she’s rubbing at her chest with the heel of her hand, a pained grimace crossing her mouth.

“No closer,” she warns when he reaches out a hand, and winces again, showing teeth. 

“Stop that,” Hux tells her, and tugs at the bacta patch wrapped around his own shoulder. “Your rib’s cracked. The less you touch it, the better. Oh, and -- I don’t know, and got you out of the wreckage, found this cave, and wrapped your chest and your leg, respectively.”

The girl cocks her head at him and blinks, once, twice, her forehead scrunched up in consideration. His mother, had she been here, would have told her to stop that, too, or her face would stay that way, not that the girl looks likely to listen. She keeps staring at him with a bothered, pinched expression, and Hux feels the need to clarify he’s just answering her questions, but she waves him off with a raised palm.

“I’m not an idiot; I got that. It’s _Rey_ , not _girl_ , by the way,” she says, and Hux sighs. Of course; be rid of one parasite rifling through his skull, gain another. The universe must love him quite well to reward him so. 

“Really? That’s worse than having -- crashlanded wherever this is? And I’m not rifling through anything. You’re just projecting. A lot. I don’t know how Kylo can stand to be around you for so long, you’re incredibly loud.”

“Oh, what, am I supposed to thank you for pointing that out and immediately stop however it is I’m doing that?” he asks. His shoulder itches mercilessly under the edges of the bandage; it’s good -- it means the flesh is knitting together as it should -- but gods, is it ever frustrating. “And since when is it _Kylo_? Did I miss some clandestine meeting after you boarded the ship, or did the crash scramble whatever’s left of your loyalties?”

She grits her teeth and braces her palms on the ground, trying to stand. Hux considers it for a long moment, the muscles of her arms standing out, tight, corded, the veins in her wrists at attention. She huffs, sweat beading on her grimy face; he’s cleaned the both of them up the best he could, but he wasn’t wasting what little water had been stowed in the pod, or too many refresher cloths. There is still some blood caked around her ear, and low on her chest, staining her worn, faded shirt.

“Let me help,” he says finally, and moves towards her, slowly, arms out. There is the slight, barely-there tilt of her head, but it’s a nod, not a no, and he crouches down, wraps one arm around under her armpit and feels her shiver. 

Push down on my other arm, however much it takes, he thinks -- he hopes it’s still loud enough -- and either it must be or she has enough common sense to use him for leverage, shift her weight carefully onto him as they stagger up together.

“I hope you weren’t planning to go far,” he tells her as they amble to the mouth of the cave, his arm still braced around her back. “The sandstorm will start again soon.”

“How do you -- how long was I out?” Rey asks, looking outside from under the rocky overhang. The sky is already greying in the distance, the wind gathering.

“Three days,” he admits, and she turns her face towards him; this close, he can see the slight beginnings of crowsfeet at the corners of her eyes -- sun damage, they and the handful of freckles down at the hollow of her throat and lower. Marks of Jakku, miserable sand heap much like this one, though how they are ever going to get off of this one, he has no kriffing idea. Maybe if somehow, through some miracle, Kylo Ren isn’t dead -- 

“Why am I alive?” she asks suddenly, tight fingers digging into his forearm; if she were Ren, he’d spout a platitude just to see the look on his face, the flash of fond, familiar anger in his eyes. Why are any of us alive, or How do you know you are, or, We’re all dying, some of us faster than others. Baiting her wouldn’t serve a purpose, unlike baiting Ren, and Hux turns away from her, shields his eyes against the bright, white sun as they step into the sand. She is right; it makes no sense for her to be breathing. It makes no sense, Ren having shoved the both of them into the escape pod, the girl out already, head lolling against his shoulder, and him on her heels, the black already beginning to creep through his vision. Ren’s breath warm on the side of his face and then gone, the pod sealing behind him, and then -- 

“That’s not what I meant,” she says, a small hand landing on his chin, fingers gripping tight to turn his face back to her. “Why am I still alive now? Three days -- you could have left me in the wreck, that would have been easiest, or, well, you know.” She draws her fingers over his neck, a crude gesture of decapitation. “He made you swear, didn’t he? To --” she seems at a loss for words until she finally settles on “help,” and Hux nods. There’s no point in saying otherwise. She may not be traipsing around the inside of his head now, but she can, and he has no doubt she would, and will, much like Ren, when she needs to. 

“He’s dead, isn’t he. The starboard engine had already blown; ship had minutes left.”

The girl -- Rey -- lets go of him, shifts her aching, damaged leg out a bit until she can balance, however precarious. She places a hand over her bandaged chest, where the rib is cracked, and holds still for a long moment.

“No. He isn’t. I’d feel it. You would, too, I think,” she says, and he wants to tell her he’d feel nothing of the kind, but she’s probably already heard. The sandstorm is coming; the wind has picked up, and the sky is a sudden slate grey, the sun’s disk an even paler white, hazy and rippling at the edges. 

“Give me your arm again,” she says, and reaches out. “Let’s go back inside. What do we have for rations?”

 _We_ , he notes. Like _Kylo_. Like the way she leans into his side, letting him guide her back under the rockface. He needs to sleep, he thinks, he feels slightly delirious, probably dehydrated, trying too hard to conserve their water. He helps her sit, and settles nearby, listening to the howl of the wind outside; in a few hours, the sand will have piled up high in some places, been swept away from others. He hopes the cave remains as it has so far, and they won’t have to dig out. He is so very tired.

“Yes,” she confirms, like it had been a question. It’s somehow even more unsettling than when Ren does the same. “Sleep, while you still can. I’ll wake you, when it’s needed.”


End file.
